Experience Music Near LIC's Water
Live at the Gantries is a series of free, outdoor performances featuring some of the borough’s most celebrated entertainers, from site specific modern dance to Afro-Peruvian pop, to traditional Chinese theater and anarchic street brass marchers, there is something for people of all ages.
Live at the Gantries started Sunday, June 13, and continues every Tuesday through Aug. 31. Shows start at 7 p.m. and end with a spectacular sunset at Gantry Plaza State Park, a 10-acre waterside oasis between 49th and 50th Avenues along the East River.
The series is produced by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Queens Theatre in the Park, and Queens Council on the Arts. It is sponsored by TF Cornerstone with additional support from Rockrose Development Corp, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, City Councilman Jimmy Van Bremer, O’Connor Capital Partners, Con Edison, and L Haus.
For more information, go to liveatthegantries.com. Gantry Plaza State Park is located at 49th Avenue and Center Boulevard in Long Island City.
Upcoming Schedule:
July 13: D.B. Rielly
D.B. Rielly and his trio will perform songs from his first full-length album, “Love Potions and Snake Oil” — a wide-ranging collection of Americana music, spanning several genres including Roots, Zydeco, Blues and Alt-Country. D.B. promises his always-diverse listeners an “instantaneous cure for all afflictions.”
July 20: Mundoclave
Mundoclave will perform Afro cuban soulful style rhythms including cha-cha, salsa and son mixed with works of standard jazz, just as the Latin jazz was performed of the 60s. Get those dancing shoes on folks!
July 27: Andy Statman
Had there been a planetarium in 19th-century Galicia, or a kosher deli in Depression-era Kentucky, Andy Statman’s music might have been playing in the background. Meandering through time, geography and culture in a few passionate, organic gusts of music, neither the man nor his inimitable hybrid sound has a very clearly defined “before” or “after.”
Statman, one of his generation’s premier mandolinists and clarinetists thinks of his compositions as “a spontaneous, American-roots form of very personal, prayerful hasidic music, by way of avant-garde jazz.” This small, modest man takes for granted that a performer might embody several worlds in his art, and seems not to recognize that his music, like his story, is extraordinary.
Aug. 3: St. Paul AME Church
Mass Choir
The St. Paul AME Church Mass Choir has been hailed for its refined yet powerful performances of gospel, spirituals and classic sacred music. This unique and diverse ensemble has performed Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitors and in December 2010 will once again present Langston Hughes Broadway musical Black Nativity at Hofstra University. In addition, the choir has performed with Jamel Gaines and Creative Outlet Dance Theater of Brooklyn. The choir, led by Gregory Sheppard, releases their first recording of traditional gospel, contemporary gospel and spirituals in summer 2010.
Aug. 10: Hiromi Suda
Blessed with a pure, crystalline mountain lake voice, Hiromi Suda combines the classical qualities of intricate phrasing, and attention to emphasis and timing with a melodic and harmonic complexity that reminds of bossa nova.
Hiroma Suda will bring her Brazilian music to Long Island City Aug. 10.
She won the World Scholarship and entered Berklee College of Music in 2005. There, Suda studied with many world-renowned musicians including Jazz vocals with Lisa Thorson, Latin American music with Mili Bermejo and Brazilian music styles with Fernando Brandao.
By 2007, Hiromi had developed a keen interest in Brazilian music and during the summer of 2007 she spent three months in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil further honing her skill with Brazilian music styles and instruments, such as the pandeiro. Her experience in Brazil was highly rewarding not only musically, but also gave a historical and cultural context to her passion for Brazilian music. During this period, Suda attended the Choro School called Escola Portatil de Musica. She studied the pardeiro with Celsinho Silva and Jorginho Silva and choro vocal style with the choro singer, Amelia Rabello and MPB vocal style with the Brazilian vocalist Suely Mesuqita.
In the ensuing years, Hiromi Suda has magnificently woven her classical background and knowledge of Brazilian music to produce a singular and innovative sound recognized by critics as a serious contribution in vocal style and technique. Ms. Suda performed with the choro group Choro Democratico and the great flute player, Fernando Brandao, including concerts at the Brazilian 13th Independence Day Festival, Ryles Jazz Club, University of Massachusetts, among others. She also leads concerts with her own band in New England and New York City. She released her debut album in 2008, which received many accolades and prompted a tour with world famous percussionist, Keita Ogawa. The album is receiving great radio support worldwide, including featured performances for several radios in Japan.